Growth vs Scale: The Differentiation That Could Spell Success Or Disaster For Your Business

At the core of every business lies the objective of being able to generate a sizeable profit. And while there are many things that could possibly happen, the one thing that’s inevitable in a properly-run business is growth. It is almost always a good thing as long as the business is able to grow properly. I said almost always because there is indeed such a thing as growing too much too fast, as is the case with then-rising game production giant Telltale Games.

The game studio was one that was seen as a pioneer in the choose-your-own-adventure style genre and was able to grow really quickly. However, as previously mentioned, its rapid expansion as well as toxic management caused the gaming studio to lose some of its best developers and to eventually close.

So, how does one avoid sharing the same fate as Telltale Games? Well, first you need to determine what business strategy best suits your business as well as the multitude of factors that weigh heavily on the success of the progression of your business.

Scaling vs Growth

Now, there are many sources online that are able to differentiate growth from scale, but the most contrast can be seen in the factors involved. Primarily, when you speak of growth, it is merely a percentage that adds to a single measure of your business like, say, the number of employees. One can say that their business is growing because the number of their employees is increasing or that their sales this period are up by 5%. However, in growth, sustainability is not a concern, it is merely the increase in value of certain metrics compared to the previous period.

On the other hand, scaling, while is still concerned with growth, does not carelessly allow the company to expand. Rather, scalability refers to an increase that the company is able to sustain with its resources. Again, the keyword here is sustainable. So, for example, even if there is a high demand for the products of a particular business, it can only hire a certain number of workers that it can pay to work. It cannot hire more people than it can pay.

So How Do I Grow My Business Properly?

Well, you need to plan out your growth right from the start. That means coming up with a plan on how you intend to handle the growth of your business 5 years, 10 years, 15 years (and so on) from now. This often entails that you seek counsel from experts. A few examples are: advice about IT infrastructure, workforce management, how much equipment you need to support the company’s growth, and so on.

There are a lot of aspects to consider in the growth of a business and the growth in each of these aspects must be considered as part of your strategic growth. Even something as simple as recruitment is extremely important. You wouldn’t want to give your production team more work than they can handle just for the sake of increasing profit even more.